The Lords of War:
Arming the World at a Theater Near Youby Mickey Z.
www.dissidentvoice.org
September 24, 2005

“I
hope they kill each other ... too bad they both can't lose.”

--
Nobel laureate Henry Kissinger (on the U.S. arming both sides of the
Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s

“Do
not support dictators. Do not sell them weapons.”

--
Nobel laureate Jose Ramos Horta, East Timorese peace negotiator

It's
not every day Amnesty International asks me to go see a Nic Cage movie.
So, when I got their e-mail about "Lord of War," I promptly caught a
bargain matinee at my local multiplex. This is not a movie review but, by
Hollywood standards, "Lord of War" rates R for radical...and I was pleased
to witness a film about the governments and freelancers supplying the
weapons that kill men, women, and children every minute of every day.

* Half
of the world's governments spend more on defense than health care.

* The
U.S. share of total world military expenditures per year has been roughly
36 percent, while comprising under 5 percent of the world's population.

* The
U.S. Arms Industry is the second most heavily subsidized industry after
agriculture.

* 2001
world military expenditures topped $839 billion, while at the same time an
estimated 1.3 billion people survive on less than the equivalent of $1
(U.S.) a day.

* The
International Red Cross has estimated that one out of every two casualties
of war is a civilian caught in the crossfire.

* The
United Nations estimates there to be over 300,000 child soldiers around
the world, now serving as combatants in over 30 current conflicts.

* The
Center for International Policy estimates that around 80% of U.S. arms
exports to the developing world go to non-democratic regimes.

*
There are more landmines planted in Cambodia than people. Cambodia is
just one of 64 countries around the world littered with some 100 million
anti-personnel landmines. Intended primarily to maim, landmines can lie in
wait years after a conflict ends, causing 500 deaths and injuries per
week.

* The
U.S. government is training soldiers in upwards of 70 countries at any
given time.

"Since
the end of the Second World War, tens of millions of people have been
killed by conventional weapons, mostly small arms such as rifles, machine
guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers," reports Lowell Bergman of
Frontline. "Low-tech, handheld weapons and explosives do the vast majority
of the killing today. There are more than 550 million small arms currently
in circulation, many of them fueling bloody civil strife in countries from
Sri Lanka to Sierra Leone."

And
the home of the brave is the number one merchant of death. In 2004, the #2
and #3 weapons-exporting nations were France ($4.4 billion) and Russia
($4.6 billion). At #1 was the United States at $18.5 billion...and if that
number alone isn't enough to provoke action, consider where those weapons
are going.

"The
U.S. has a long-standing (and accelerating) policy of arming, training,
and aiding some of the world's most repressive regimes," says Frida
Berrigan, Senior Research Associate with the Arms Trade Resource Center of
the World Policy Institute. "The U.S. transferred weaponry to 18 of the 25
countries involved in active conflicts in 2003, the last year for which
full Pentagon data is available."

I
walked to the movie theater with no concern for landmines, snipers, or
IEDs...but every foot that steps on a landmine somewhere in the Third
World is blown off on our watch.

If
nothing else, "Lord of War" shines a much-needed light on this situation.
Anyone can take issue over certain aspects of the film, but what the
mediocre reviews this film is garnering knowingly ignore is the daily
price of the arms trade and how Hollywood plays a role in fetishizing the
use of such weapons. Governor Arnold once said, "I have a love interest in
every one of my films: a gun." I say, as a tiny first step, go see "Lord
of War" instead of "The 40-year-old Virgin" this week and encourage others
to do so.

Do
this not only to experience what Hollywood could do if it wanted but to
vote with your movie dollar for a little less spectacle and a little more
rabble-rousing at a theater near you.